(Cant' Say) Yes to the Dress
by inkheart9459
Summary: Miranda's personally picked out a dress for Andy to wear to the next gala they're attending, but Andy can't accept without delving into a past she doesn't want to remember.


"Nigel, I can't wear this," Andy said, stroking the light blue silk gently. It was a beautiful, beautiful dress, but there was no way she could wear it. It was a halter top with a rather modest sweetheart neckline, but the standout detail of the dress was it was completely backless. The dress would just cover the wearer's key assets, leaving the rest of the back completely bare. There was absolutely no way.

"Nonsense, Six, you'll look stunning in that dress. You definitely don't need to worry you can't pull it off. With those legs of yours, your skin, and your hair, it will go perfectly with you."

"Nigel, it's not a thing about not being able to pull it off. You've taught me a lot about what I can and can't do with clothes, but it's something else."

Nigel looked up at her, clearly waiting for her to go on and elaborate whatever the problem was that was stopping her from wearing a six thousand dollar Donna Karan dress. Andy just stared back at him, not budging. She wasn't going explain. She didn't have to. There were plenty of other dresses in the Closet she could wear that would look plenty good on her. No was a complete sentence.

Except Andy found that hard to remember when Nigel was almost literally staring into her soul.

"You've literally accepted every other piece of clothing I've ever tried to put you in, but for this dress, arguably one of the best pieces to come through this office in a great while, this one you refuse." Nigel shook his head. "Six, I'm going to need more than 'it's something else.' Miranda picked this dress out for you to wear tomorrow personally."

Andy blanched at that. Oh she was going to get in so much trouble. But still she wasn't going to open her mouth. Her lower back and abdomen were already starting to ache just sitting there having that conversation. She resisted the urge to rub at it. Rubbing never made it better anyway. If anything, it made her think about that night, and that was the last thing she wanted. Which was exactly why Nigel was not finding out any time soon about why she wasn't wearing that dress.

"I literally jump as high as she instructs every single time she says to, this is the one time I'm not going to. It's a beautiful dress and I would wear it if I could, but I can't. Is there anything else I can wear?" She gave him a look that said she knew there was. They worked at a fashion magazine. If someone couldn't find something to wear they weren't trying hard enough.

Nigel sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. "Fine, fine, but when the Dragon comes after me for not giving you the dress, I'm sending her straight to you. Why you had to choose to do this at the Met Gala is beyond me." He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Honestly, Six, I expect things like this out of the models, not out of our local Midwestern implant. Aren't you all supposed to be sweet as sugar and saying yes sir?" He started to walk back towards the door for the Closet. "Come on, if we're going to find you something we're going to need all the time we can get."

Andy scowled at that veiled insult, but followed anyway.

Garment bag in hand, Andy returned to her desk and sat down. Emily had left before she'd disappeared to Nigel's office. Miranda had left for the night before the sun had even set to attend the girls' latest recital and to take them out to dinner beforehand. In the wake of the divorce she was getting much better at scheduling family time before work. Andy felt as proud of her as she could when the other person was her boss.

She blew the rest of her time waiting for the Book by writing. It was nothing really useable, just thoughts and images that she needed to get out of her mind. With every word down on paper the back ached less and less until when the Book finally appeared it didn't hurt at all. Andy sighed and stuffed her moleskin back in her purse, grabbed the Book, her garment bag, and texted Roy before she set off for the elevator.

After exchanging pleasantries with Roy the ride was silent as normal. She talked to Roy sometimes, and he was a genuinely nice guy, but he also knew the value of comfortable silence and for that Andy was grateful, especially tonight. She watched the lights of New York go by, stepping out briefly to grab Miranda's dry cleaning. She was glad the place was efficient and always had the bags ready to go when Andy got there. The rest of the ride Andy spent in her mind, skirting around thoughts she didn't want to have.

It would be the anniversary soon.

They pulled up at the townhouse before that thought really had time to sink in. Andy let out a sigh of relief and thanked Roy before getting out with all her things and the dry cleaning. She walked up the steps and unlocked the door with her normal balancing act. She would be glad to get rid of some of the stuff in her arms or else the subway ride home would be more complicated than normal.

She padded quietly in as normal and set the Book on the table. She'd just opened the door to put the dry cleaning in the closet before Miranda called out.

"Andrea."

Andy closed her eyes. She had hoped the woman would still be at the girls' recital but it was still ten at night and the girls have school tomorrow. Of course she would be home. These call ins had been becoming more and more frequent since Paris. Andy didn't know what to think about them considering Miranda rarely had a point to them anymore. She talked to Andy for a little while and then sent her off back into the night once more.

She hurried and put the laundry in the closet and went back into the living room where Miranda frequently. She was curled up on her normal couch, watching the fire burn brightly with a glass of scotch in her hand.

"Miranda, do you need anything?" Andy asked as she always did.

Miranda, in turn, replied as she had since after Paris. "Sit." She gestured to the chair Andy favored, across from Miranda and far enough away that she wasn't easy to murder if she said the wrong thing.

Andy did as instructed, settling her garment bag on the arm of the chair carefully and her purse at her feet. She looked up at Miranda, watching her intently, and waited for the older woman to speak. Andy never initiated these conversations, Miranda would always start off with something that happened at Runway that day and branch off into whatever was holding her interest at the moment. Andy had heard a great deal about the girls, about the divorce with Stephen, her true thoughts on designers collections beyond just a barely there smile or a purse of the lips.

It was never intensely personal, it was things that you would share with a friend you saw every now and again, but weren't very close to, but Andy had a feeling that this was as open as she had been with anyone beyond the twins in a long while. So she let Miranda talk and contributed her own thoughts when needed. Sometimes Miranda would ask her about herself, especially when leaving Nate had been fresh, sometimes she would ask about Andy's writing. She had seen the moleskin on their numerous trips in the car and knew immediately what it was for. Andy talked to her in much the same manner, letting her know the basics but not the intimate details of her life.

As odd as the conversations were, and as much as she didn't want to talk tonight, they were kind of nice. So she relaxed back into her chair and waited for Miranda to speak instead of acting impatient.

"Did Nigel give you the dress I set aside for you?"

Andy swallowed. Of course that was what she would ask first. There was no way she couldn't be honest about it. Miranda would find out the next day and she was be that much more furious if she found out about it in public instead of in private.

"Um, Miranda, about that, it was a fabulous dress, really, it was, and I'm honored that you set aside something like that for me, but I can't wear it." Andy looked down at her hands in her lap. She hated this, waiting to be shot down by the Ice Queen of New York. It always made her feel smaller than she already was in a city of millions.

"Well, why ever not, Andrea?" Her voice wasn't cold yet, but the volume had dropped and Andy knew she was on shaky ground.

"I, um." She swallowed. She lifted her eyes and looked at Miranda. "I can't, Miranda, but the reason is personal." She might as well be direct and assertive. If she was going to go down with the ship it might as well be in a Titanic blaze of glory.

Miranda looked unimpressed. "Really, Andrea, the reason is personal. A million girls would kill for me to personally pick out a dress for them. A million more would kill for that dress alone. Personal will not cut it." Her blue eyes narrowed, daring Andy to deny her reason again.

Andy sucked in her lip. She couldn't afford to lose her job, not with Nate gone. Was that what she was risking here? Of course it was, Miranda fired girls for getting her coffee wrong. But then again Miranda didn't talk to those girls as if they were human beings. Andy wasn't sure where she stood at all.

Her back started to ache and ache again. Her skin felt tight, her muscles tensed. She knew that she would not sleep well that night. She would dream again. She closed her eyes and tried to dispel the images of smoke and fire.

She blinked her eyes open to find Miranda still looking at her, but her eyes weren't narrowed anymore. They were surveying Andy's face, trying to figure out what was wrong. She pursed her lips and sat forward.

Andy didn't allow her to speak. She scooted forward and stood up, turning her back to Miranda. She untucked her shirt and pulled it up so it bunched midway up her back. She figured at this point it was rather better to show than tell. She knew the instant Miranda saw it, the slightly raised, discolored scar, a thick line starting just above the inward curve of her lower back and ending in a big star shaped bulb at the end. Miranda gasped. Andy lowered her shirt and sat back down.

"That's why I can't wear the dress. I don't want anyone to see the scar. Not because I find it disfiguring, which I do in a way, but I've moved mostly past that, but because I do not want to tell how I got it." She played with the edge of her shirt now that it was untucked.

"Alright, Andrea." Miranda's voice was quiet, but not in the way that Andy feared. It was soft, accepting, not sharp and biting.

Andy looked up to see Miranda, looking at her with an accepting look on her face. It wasn't the pity that Andy was used to or the disgust. Miranda didn't even look the slightest bit curious about the scar and everyone outside her family and very close friends was always curious. She supposed it was human nature to want to know something that you couldn't. Miranda was a strange woman, she knew that, but this was outside her expectations.

"I was a teenager, fifteen and feeling invincible." Andy was speaking before she never really knew what was going on. Funny how when the person in front of her didn't actively want the story she was inclined to share.

"I was out with some friends. One of us had a license and a car in sophomore year. We were riding around when we probably shouldn't have. It was snowing, but it was Ohio, it always was snowing at the end of January. It wasn't bad, bad. It was late and no one was out anyway and we were heading home from a movie but we really didn't want to go home quite yet."

Andy swallowed hard. The fire was filling her lungs again. She couldn't breathe just like that night.

"There was a patch of black ice, at least that's what they told me later. All I knew was one second we were on the road, the next second we were flipping over and over and heading towards a tree. I woke up later, I have no idea how much later, and the gas tank had cracked something caught it on fire. The firemen said electrical fire I just know that it was hell. But I was hanging upside down, smoke all around me, with a piece of metal shoved through my stomach and through my back into the seat. I couldn't move. The only thing that saved me was that the fire department was literally a minute away. They put out everything and got me out of the car and to the hospital before I really realized what was going on."

She blinked back tears and took a deep breath.

"When I woke up I found out that the two people in the front were killed on impact. The two others in the back seat hadn't made it either. I shouldn't have made it. They said it was a miracle that the metal missed everything vitally important. I was the only one who survived by a stroke of luck."

She opened her mouth to go on but couldn't. She could have lived with the wreck if it hadn't been like that. If more than just her had survived. But that wasn't how it had worked out. It had taken her ages to get over that. Even longer to get into a car and not have flashbacks. It had been better when it was her driving, but it still wasn't comfortable.

Miranda was silent for a few seconds, processing everything that Andy had told her. "I'm sorry that you had to go through such a traumatic event, Andrea. I'm sorry that it turned out as it did. But I am not sorry that you lived because you have much to contribute to the world and I would hate to see that not come into being." Miranda scooted forward and stretched across the table between them to squeeze Andy's knee gently.

Andy looked at the pale hand on her knee for just a second before dropping her hand down onto Miranda's and squeezing back.

Miranda pulled back after a second. "Now, Andrea, what exactly have you picked instead?"

And just like that it was back to business. Andy sighed gratefully, shaking off the smoke and fire and cold winter night, fully coming back to reality. She was grateful at the change in subject, almost as much as she was that Miranda had listened to the story without interrupting and reacted without pity. But that was worth more in her mind, and always would.

She smiled and Miranda and unzipped the garment bag to show her just what she'd picked out instead.


End file.
